Jeopardy! is sports, obviously, and now it’s beating some of the most watched sporting events on TV in the ratings thanks to its Greatest of All Time Tournament. James Holzhauer, Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings have teamed up to give us some of the most riveting Jeopardy! matches in recent memory in the prime time special aired on ABC this week.
Through three episodes, Jennings has won a pair and is on the brink of the $1 million cash prize, while Holzhauer took the second game and has looked dangerous throughout. The drama has apparently led to some big numbers for ABC. Reports on Friday, an off day for the tournament, indicated that the first three nights’ ratings beat nearly every Monday Night Football game aired on ESPN this season.
ABC pays $1.1 billion annually for Monday Night Football. The GOAT Jeopardy! broadcasts beat out every MNF game this year except one (Data from @ApexMarketing) pic.twitter.com/DB8wug7Lqv
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) January 10, 2020
Only Seahawks-49ers beat Jeopardy! in the ratings, and that was basically the biggest regular season game the NFL had this season. It’s also important to note those are cable broadcasts, and the GOAT Tournament is airing on network television on ABC. But compared to other major sporting events broadcast on ABC and Fox, like the NBA Finals and World Series, respectively, it’s also doing stunningly well.
More context: Last night's #JeopardyGOAT had a bigger same-day audience than the first five games of the both the 2019 NBA Finals and the 2019 World Series. https://t.co/sxIiFxFaJH
— TVMoJoe (@TVMoJoe) January 10, 2020
To give that a bit more context, nearly three times the amount of people in America have seen James Holzhauer’s Las Vegas Golden Knights-themed drawing of his name on the Jeopardy! stage than actually watched the Stanley Cup Finals last year.
Jeopardy 'Greatest of All Time' viewership numbers:
Tues: 14.4 million
Wed: 14.8 million
Thurs: 15.4 million2019 comparisons:
NBA Finals Game 1: 13.5 million
MLB World Series Game 1: 12.2 million
NHL Stanley Cup Game 1: 5.5 millionhttps://t.co/JfkL5Z5BMm— Jimmy Traina (@JimmyTraina) January 10, 2020
They’re remarkable numbers for a syndicated game show in prime time, but it only confirms that the juice was worth the squeeze for ABC in making this tournament happen. The games have been good, tons of people are watching and Tuesday’s return should see even bigger ratings with the chance to see someone win a million dollars.
